1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to a system and method providing a busy gauge for uses of an instant messaging application. In particular, the present invention relates to a system and method for determining activity levels of instant messaging partners and displaying such activity levels in a busy gauge corresponding to each instant messaging partner.
2. Description of the Related Art
Instant messaging has become a critical communications technology for many users and organizations. Instant messaging allows a user to create a “session” with one or more other users so that messages can be sent back and forth contemporaneously. The flow of messages in an instant message session creates a dialog between the user and other users with whom the user has established a session. In this manner, quick messages can be transmitted without sending an email message or telephoning the other user. Users can choose whether and when to respond to instant messages, much like an email message. However, unlike email messages, in instant messaging, a window is displayed on the user's display showing the messages between the user and another user.
Initially, instant messaging applications were perceived as an informal means for family and friends to chat online. However, businesses and other professional organizations have quickly adopted instant messaging as a key tool for business communications. Conference call attendees often engage in instant messaging sessions with certain people in the conference call or with other people not attending the conference call. These instant messaging sessions often allow the attendee to ask questions that would not be made verbally on the conference call, enabling conference calls attendee to be more informed and efficient.
Another use of instant messaging is providing technical support or assistance to others. In this regard, instant messaging is often preferred over telephone or email communications. The advantage of instant messaging over using the telephone is that, using instant messaging, one technician can provide assistance simultaneously to multiple parties, while using telephones would generally serialize the communication so that only one person could be assisted at a time. In addition, with many types of technical assistance, there are often delays that are incurred while the person receiving assistance performs various functions. Using instant messaging, these delays can be utilized to help others, while using the telephone these delays simply lengthen the amount of time before the next person can be assisted.
When providing assistance, either technical or otherwise, instant messaging is often preferred over email because of the “back and forth” nature of the instant messaging communication that generally makes the flow of information more efficient than using email. Often times the technician may need background, system, or other information to understand the nature of the problem and be able to suggest a course of action. Using instant messaging, the background, courses of action, and effectiveness of the various actions can be ascertained within a single instant messaging session. Using email, communicating this same “back and forth” information may take several separate email messages.
While instant messaging has distinct advantages over other forms of communication, it is not without its challenges. Because instant messaging is neither face-to-face or verbal, it is difficult to determine how busy other people are when engaging in instant messaging communications. The challenge is exacerbated by the fact that instant messaging is often used for more social communications in addition to more serious business discussions. A friend or colleague may not realize that the recipient in an instant messaging session is extremely busy and may send instant messages related to trivial, low priority, or non-work items. Not only is the busy person distracted by the trivial communications, but they have to take the time to send a response letting the other person know that they are currently very busy. Because instant messaging is often used for more social interactions, such intrusions into a busy person's day may result in less than tactful responses and may unintentionally alienate the colleagues or otherwise damage the personal relationship between the parties.
What is needed, therefore, is a system and method that provides a busy gauge that informs others of an instant messaging participant's activity level. What if further needed is a system and method that automatically calculates a person's level of activity based upon the person's interaction with his or her computer system.
SUMMARY
It has been discovered that the aforementioned challenges are resolved using a system and method that gathers activity level from users and provides a “busy gauge” to others that indicates the user's activity level. In one embodiment, the user's activity is computed automatically based upon the user's interaction with their computer system. In the automatic method, an input tracking routine records the user's input frequency, such as mouse clicks, voice inputs, keyboard inputs, and other inputs in order to determine the user's activity level. The recorded activity data is compared with activity level thresholds that can be either default thresholds or user-specified. For example, thresholds may be in place so that if the user averages over 100 inputs per minute the user's activity level is considered “high,” if the user averages between 25 and 99 input actions per minute the activity level is “medium,” and if the user averages fewer than 25 input actions per minute, the activity level is “low.” Understanding that sometimes a user can be busy without having numerous input entries, such as when reading an important report, the user can select to use a manual input level in which the user specifies the user's activity level despite the number of input actions received at the user's computer.
The user's activity level (e.g., high, medium, or low) is sent to the user's instant messaging partners (i.e., those users with which the user has an active instant messaging session). In one embodiment, an iconic representation is displayed based upon the activity level to graphically indicate the user's activity level. In this manner, a user can see which instant messaging partners are busy and avoid interrupting such users with trivial or non-work related comments or questions.
The foregoing is a summary and thus contains, by necessity, simplifications, generalizations, and omissions of detail; consequently, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the summary is illustrative only and is not intended to be in any way limiting. Other aspects, inventive features, and advantages of the present invention, as defined solely by the claims, will become apparent in the non-limiting detailed description set forth below.